The wood is soft and brittle, but it has durability when placed in contact with the soil, which makes it useful for posts and rails. It is also used for ox yokes and cooperage. Oil of sassafras, which is distilled from the bark of the roots, is used for perfuming soap. This tree is confined to eastern North America, and deserves far more attention than has been given it by landscape gardeners,—it is a beautiful tree as well as an individual one.
Sassafras was a popular name used by the French in Florida, and it has become both its generic and specific name.
Chapter XII
THE MAGNOLIA AND TULIP TREE, THE CATALPA, THE AILANTHUS, AND THE ARALIA
The Magnolia and the Tulip-tree.
Chapter XII
THE MAGNOLIA AND TULIP TREE, THE CATALPA, THE AILANTHUS, AND THE ARALIA
Families Magnoliaceæ, Bignoniaceæ, Simaroubaceæ, and Araliaceæ
The magnolia family is made up of trees and shrubs belonging mainly to the tropics, but it has two genera in the Northeastern States,—the magnolia and the tulip tree. They are particularly interesting in winter on account of the buds which are covered with stipules forming bud-scales and which protect the undeveloped leaves until they open in the spring.
There are six species of magnolia in the United States, but only one is found growing wild in New England. The tulip tree is the only species in the genus Liriodendron and it is found only in eastern North America and western China.
Swamp Magnolia; Sweet Bay Magnolia glauca